Watch a Busted Turn-Of-The-Century Letterpress Brought Back to Life

Letterpress printing revolutionized the literary world in the 15th century and was extensively used until the mid 20th century. There are still many old letterpress machines hanging around, but most of them are in a state of neglect as they are too heavy to move very easily and too old or damaged to restore. DIY wizard Jimmy DiResta rescued this letterpress machine from the elements and over the course of five years he brought it back to life.

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It took a torch and some deep-penetrating rust removal spray to get the machine to budge, but once he got it moving just a bit he knew it would eventually start turning. The most challenging part was that to get it fully operational, he ultimately had to fabricate a pivotal piece from scratch.

The analog functionality of this machine is a sight to behold as he places and removes each paper to be printed. The results aren't the cleanest, but knowing the flyers were printed on a machine that's around 100 years old, makes this infinitely cooler than any Kinkos print job.